[A]

What is a visual novel?

In short words, it is a NOVEL with PICTURES. A picture book, if you will.

The main difference between a visual novel and a picture book is that Visual novels contain a lot more text

to read, just like a novel. Generally, it takes a lot longer to finish reading the whole story than a regular novel.

The best thing about visual novel is that you create the story as you go on.

What do I mean? Well sometimes, you get to MAKE choices for the main characters.

Let's take Spider-Man movie for example. Spiderman was forced to make a choice between

his girlfriend and about eleven children, when battling green goblin. Well let's pretend

we are playing "Spider man" Visual novel. In this case, you would be able to make that choice.

And depending on your choice, you can acquire different endings.

(In Tsukihime, there are over 20 endings, including True, Normal, Good, and Bad endings.)

[Two choices are shown above]

Over 75% of Visual Novels contain H-Scenes. Mostly because it will increase the number of sales. There are many

controversies about this, whether the companies should stop making visual novels with H-Scenes or they should keep

producing visual novels with H-Scenes. Personally, I look at both

sides and I say"WHAT IS THE PROBLEM??? WHO CARES IF THEY DO OR DONT??"

Right now,mirror moon is working on the translation of Tsukihime. http://www.mirrormoon.org/

So for those of you who's going like "I can't read any Japanese!". Just wait a little bit until the

translation gets done.

[B]

If you're a visual novel faniac like me, then you should know there are many visual novels out there in Japan. (Sizuku, Kizuato, To heart, and White Album from leaf, Kanon and Air from Key, Fate of Heart and Memories off from Kid, Tsukihime and Fate/Stay night from TYPE-MOON)

TYPE-MOON is the only company that started out as doujin group. And after the release of Tsukihime, they got incredibly famous and it clearly surpassed all the other Visual Novels during the period 2000-2001 (Had the #1 Sale). Also, it broke the all-time record of numbers of mad movies ever produced.

-Source "2003 Mad Movie Counts"-
P.S : Somebody get me the chart of 2004 or 2005. I want to check if it still has the most mad movies.

So, what exactly is it about Tsukihime that made TYPE-MOON incredibly successful? well let's find out.

(2) Storyline and character profiles

Shiki Tohno, the protagonist of this story, dies from a car accident and miraculously comes back alive.

Possibly this accident caused Shiki to start seeing "Lines of death", which any objects possesses including living things.

Also, he starts suffering from anemia very often, which is why he was forced to move to one of their relative's house.

And seven years later...

His father dies, unexpected, and he gets summoned back to his house by the new master of Tohno's house, Akiha Tohno.

As a new life begins from him, he faces many extraordinary events such as encountering a vampire,

and learns the truth about himself and his family...

 

Your story begins from here. Meaning, you start making choices that is going to reflect towards your

ultimate goal (No naughty thoughts, yet), getting to an ending.

There are five different character's story that you can complete, and there are total eleven endings of these characters.

The rest are the bad endings, of which you encounter if you screw up in making choices.

You should clear each endings by this order : Arcueid --> Ciel --> Akiha --> Hisui --> Kohaku. It is recommended by TYPE-MOON, and it is

STRONGLY RECOMMENDED by me.

Although If you have the final release version, you'll be forced to finish the story in this order.

 

Arcueid Brunestud

"I'll make you take the responsibility for killing me!"

Main heroine of Tsukihime. She is a vampire known as the "True Ancestor". The True Ancestors can be considered as the superior being of this planet with super strength, knowledge, and immortality. Even thought they can drink blood, they can take regular food in its place and have no problem. But when True Ancestors have learned the taste of blood, they lose their consciousness and begins killing everything in sight. The True Ancestors in this state is classified as "Fallen". Arcueid is a True Ancestor who was brought up to hunt these fallen Vampires. She is refered to as the Princess, and her power is much stronger than the others. However what happens if she "falls"? The result was that all True Ancestors were killed by her. After she regained her consciousness, her only objective was to kill the one that made her fall, vampire Roa. For hundreds of years, Arcueid has been fighting a lonely battle with Roa.

[Shinjos, or True Ancestor's power is unimaginable]

This battle finally comes to an end when she meets Shiki. Their encounter was an incredible one though; she got sliced into 17 pieces by the reversed Shiki. For that reason, she uses up most of her powers to heal herself which leaves her wide open to her enemy's attack. What she decides to do is to have Shiki work with her. Shiki, not knowing why he did that and feeling so bad, had no other choice but to agree. With the help of Shiki's power, they were able to completely destroy Roa.

[Waiting for Shiki to come after getting sliced..]

Arcueid's ultimate ability is Imagination Realization aka "Marble Phantasm," a power to change a certain amount of space into what she desires. With such power to control the forces of nature, it makes her an invincible being, but the funny thing is that she has the brightest personality. It's not that she's doesn't have intelligence, but goes all out with Shiki like a child who got her very first friend. Arcueid, the vampire who hates blood and walks in mid-day wearing all white...

["Shiki, I like 'if's. You could imagine just about anything with it."]

Ciel

"I just can't leave people like you"

Ciel is disguised as Shiki's school's senior, but her real identity is an exorsist of the Church Organization. The Church is excessively motivated to get rid of all vampires, but she is a member of a dangerous group of assassins even within the Church. Codenamed as, "BOW", She has two main weapons, the "Black Key" that she throws around, and her ultimate conceptual weapon, the "Seventh Holy Scripture".

[LEFT : Ciel, with her Seventh Holy Scripture]
[RIGHT : Watching over Shiki with three throwing swords on her hand]

She is on a mission to destroy the vampire [Including Arcueid] that resides in Shiki's town, but she also has a strong personal reason to do so. This vampire is again Roa, and because of him Ciel's hometown was annihilated and ultimately she lost the ability to die. Such peculiar power was against the Church's belief, but they thought that they can make use of it and force her to join their organization.. Because of this Ciel has went through countless painful experiences. However to Shiki, she was still his senior that he cared for. With his help, Roa is destroyed and her body returns to normal.

[Ciel's enemy, Arcueid, attempting to kill Ciel]

She seems to be an awesome character, but she acts like joke in reality. Her favorite and obsessed food is Curry, Curry bread, Curry Noodles, and just about anyhthing that has to do with curry. Her battle costumes are actually her hobby, not the Church's official. She is currently the president of the Tea club at their school, which she's the only member of.

[Ciel, in her tea club]

[Ciel, on a usual day]	[What is she embarrased about?]	[Executor Outfit]

 

Tohno Akiha (Autumn Leaf)

"...Because I'm worried about my brother.
Is that reason not good enough?"

 

Main Heroine of the Tohno side story. Akiha is a sister of Shiki, but in reality there was no blood relationship. The ancestor's of Akiha's family mixed a demon's blood into themselves in order to achieve power. However the results were incomplete and many died early in their years from uncontrollable powers. When the Tohno family awakens in their uncontrollable power after a certain age, it is called "Reversing". Even from the beginning of the game, Akiha is already struggling from reversing, but she hides it from Shiki.

[Akiha's "Reversing"]

The reason goes back to when Shiki and Akiha were still kids. Shiki and Akiha were good friends but there was a 3rd friend, the true Shiki Tohno(Shiki(2) from now on), Akiha's real brother. The Shiki we have been talking about is actually from Nanaya's family, therefore his name being Shiki Nanaya. Historically, Tohno's family had a battle with Nanaya's family and Nanaya's family was wiped out, except Shiki. Akiha's father, believing that they might need him later, adopts him. However at that time, Shiki(2) was already reversed, so he tries to kill Shiki and Shiki was badly injured.. In order to save Shiki who was fatally wounded, Akiha not knowingly uses her powers. She took Shiki's life into herself where she can keep him alive safely. However Shiki left the Tohno's family from that day and Akiha had to live a lonely life under her strict father. The only thing that kept her going is her feelings towards Shiki, who she believes is her only brother.

[Welcome back, Nee-San]

Finally Shiki is brought back to the Tohno Mansion at the beginning of Tsukhime. Akiha can't be honest to her feelings but it is obvious from her actions. She quits a private girl's only high school and goes to Shiki's school together. However those pleasant days doesn't last because Shiki and Akiha both becomes sick. This was caused by Shiki(2) who was still alive. In order to protect Akiha, Shiki succeeds in killing him. However at the end, Shiki is left with the ultimate choice of killing himself or Akiha, only one can survive. In Kagetsu Toya, there's an addition to this ending so Shiki is able to come back after saving Akiha.

[Akiha's true ending. Holding Shiki's "Seven nights" and wishing that he would come back.]

[Tohno family's curse.. reversing]	[Akiha, when in a good mood]	[.. No explanation necessary]

 

By the way, Akiha is very concerned about her flat chest... If you mention about it, you can consider yourself dead.

 

Hisui (Jade)

"But Shiki-Sama. You're my master"

"Anata wo hanni desu.(You're the prepertrator because I said so.)"

Hisui is a quiet maid who works for the Tohno Family. She is very loyal to her job and patient; for example wakes up Shiki every morning (although he doesn't wake up that easily) and waits in front of the gate of the mansion for him to return from school for hours. She is good at cleaning but very bad at cooking, because she lost her sense of taste. From the stories I read, eating her food is like drinking a poison! She used to be a bright child, but after what happened to Shiki, she began to close her mind.

I found Hisui's scenario really interesting partly because of her personality. Also there has been some really funny incidents too. Like the time when she "Forced to be drunk" by Akiha.

[The day after "Welcome Back! Shiki!" Party. ...Nothing happened]

[Hisui, eight years ago]

It happens quite often that people gets confused this person with Kohaku, partly because Kohaku always smiles.(See C.I Kohaku). Hisui scenario starts to reveal some questions left behind in the previous endings. Nonetheless, Hisui's ending's the most tragic through out the game, in my opinion.

[You're forced to face one of two endings in Hisui's Scenario.]
[Although Kohaku miraculously survives in the ending shown on the left picture]

By the way, it is famous that she's the favorite character of the Character designer.

[Hisui, on a usual day]	[Hisui, drinking at Shiki's "Welcome back" Party. ... She's under the drinking age though.]	[Hisui laughing?? ... no it's actually Kohaku, disguised as Hisui.]

 

Kohaku (Amber)

"It's my first time... that someone was so nice to me"

Twin sister of Hisui and also a maid. In contrast to Hisui, she is good at cooking but bad at cleaning. As you can see, she's very bright but you later on see that this smile was made up, completely.

Hisui and Kohaku were both brought to the Tohno family when they were little. Their family had a special power of giving others energy. Akiha's father needed this ability in order to keep control of his body. This transfer of energy is strongest though the means of sexual intercourse. This left a trauma in their childhood years. Although at first it seems Hisui was the one who went through this, but actually Kohaku was the one who experienced all the tragedy.

[Kohaku, entrapped in Akiha's father's room]

Her smile today is hiding a deep feeling of revenge, and she succeeds in getting her revenge by wiping out the remaining members of Tohno family (From Hisui's ending. Remember that she kills herself after getting her revenge. She does not kill Shiki Nanaya, partly because he is not a member of Tohno's family, but mostly because he gave Kohaku some sort of hope eight years ago, just by looking at her through the window).
["Shiki-Sama, why did you have to return?"]

She is the last character to see the ending of in Tsukihime, and you find out all of the bad things that were happening was indirectly because of her (Possibly the most important storyline of Tsukihime). However you'll able to see her real smile at the end.
In childhood years, she was never able to go out with Shiki and the others. But before Shiki left the mansion, there was a white ribbon she gave him. This ribbon contained her mixed but strong feelings towards him, and asked him to return it to her one day. If he can return this ribbon to Kohaku instead of Hisui, even with their switched personality, he'll be able to save her from destroying their family and herself.

[Shiki-San.. you already knew about it...]

She is trained to be a doctor, but grows weird weeds in their backyard...

[Kohaku, finally being able to smile from her heart]

[Kohaku on a usual day. Although her smile is made-up]	[Scolding Shiki... Their dialogue is pretty funny..]	[Her facial expression, when she revealed her true intentions]

 

[By the way, Kohaku's a pro at games. She's playing PS2,
according to other websites I've been to.]

 

(3) Music, System, ETC...

The music went really well with the game, I thought. It wasn't as impacting as Kanon though. But I still think

that they did a good job on it. It would have been better if they added some sort of vocal music though, in my opinion.

The game system is the part where Tsukihime might actually lose points on. It was too simple, to be short. I mean, it

did provide with saving, loading and skipping system, but it's waaay too simple. (I guess it's just like to heart.. at least that

has a sound track system..)

But I did like the "Skip Dialogue" system though. It's done better than Kanon's or To heart's. It actually takes longer to skip

the dialogues in those games.

(4) Conclusion

In conclusion, I would definitely want to encourage you to read this, only if you got

what it takes to withstand dialogues that are very impactful and some (well, not really)

H-scenes. There is more to this than just being entertaining (Cough, Harry potter).

You will learn something important, like I have. Generally,

I hate all the main characters in Visual novels, (Especially that bastard from To heart, FUJITA

HIROYUKI!!! YOU BASTARD!!). But I felt different about Shiki, as he experienced a pain that is worse

than death.

This is the best visual novel no, the best novel I've ever read in my life.

(5) Scoring (Visual Novel Based)

Scoring is the place where you get to be "Objective" about a game. The overall score is 400

and each criteria is given with 100 points. Extra points is awarded if it has a sequence or a correlating

story produced by the same company (+5 Points for this) or/and if it is popular among

the genre (+3, +5 or +10), depending on popularity.

Scoring (Visual Novel Based)
Story	99.8	Simply Amazing... No regret of giving this score!
Graphic	92.0	Excellent graphic work
Sound/Music	88.0	Music & Especially sound went well with the game
Game System	83.1	They could have done a better job on this.
Extra Points	+15	Sequence - Kagetsu Tohya. Broke the all-time record of Mad-Movies, many doujins produced, manga produced & Animation produced.
Overall	377.9/400
Tsukihime receives 94.5%, A letter grade of A.